ukraine yesterday. no one really said how that talk went, what came out of it. i mean, clearly nothing has changed in the situation at hand. but we asked repeatedly the u.s. government what would be an escalation exactly for those larger costs to go into effect and by the same token what would be deescalation at this point? because the west has been continuing to call for a deescalation and saying that there's still a door open for a reversal of course, there's still a door open to dialogue. so how would things deescalate now? because as we said it's not as if russia's going to leave crimea. and the u.s. responded saying, well, a dialogue. if russia would simply sit down and talk directly to ukraine, that would be seen as something of a deescalation. an escalation, of course, would be a movement into ukraine, but the bigger question is, well, what about russia staying in crimea, is that an escalation? at this point those greater cost which is would impact economic

sectors in russia have not been imposed and i guess it just remains to be seen what would trigger those. rosemary? >> indeed, watching very closely. michelle kosinski joining us live from the hague. thanks to you. harsh weather has stalled the search for missing flight 370. even so, investigators are racing against the clock to find any trace of the airliner and we will show you why. many family members of passengers grieved after they were told flight 370 ended in the indian ocean. that then brief quickly turned to anger. we go live to beijing. that's next. my mornings are definitely not routine. and that can take a lot of energy. introducing nature valley breakfast biscuits. four biscuits, 26 grams of whole grains that give you the energy to help keep you going. i love nature valley breakfast biscuits.

you're watching cnn newsroom. >> welcome to our viewers in the united states and, of course, around the world. there is still no trace of missing malaysia airlines flight 370 and it may be some time before anything turns up. >> bad weather has forced searchers in the air and the sea to suspend operations and they're not expected to resume until wednesday, and that's only if the weather gets better. passengers' families in beijing marched on malaysia's embassy to express their growing anger. they say malaysia has not kept them informed about the search and investigation. meantime, the head of malaysia airlines defended his company's communication with those family members.

>> our sole and only motivation last night was to ensuring that the incredibly short amount of time available to us the families heard the tragic news before the world did. wherever humanly possible we did so in person with the families or by telephone using sms as the last resort of ensuring fully that nearly 1,000 family members heard the news from us and not from from the media. the "new york times" is reporting that u.s. president barack obama wants to end the government's bulk collection of data on who americans are calling. under the plan, phone companies, not the national security agency, would hold the

information for their normal 18-month period. then say would need a court order to obtain that data. u.s. president barack obama signed an emergency declaration for washington state after a weekend landslide. the death toll is at least 14, another 176 are unaccounted for, although a local emergency official stresses some on the missing list are likely safe. the slide happened in a remote area north of seattle after weeks of heavy rain. investigators are desperate to find the flight data and cockpit voice recorders from that missing malaysia airlines jet. >> we keep hearing this over and over again. they're crucial to understanding what happened, when, and also why. searchers are now racing the clock. >> reporter: with the secrets of malaysia airlines flight 370

believed to be hidden in a remote section of the indian ocean, the race is intensifying to recover the clues before it's too late. >> things are getting compromised as the clock ticks here. there are components that can corrode so, yeah, this could be disappearing so, yeah, the clock is again running against it. >> aviation expert matthew robinson spent nearly 20 years investigating accidents for the u.s. marine corps. he says the top priority must be finding the flight data recorder. a torpedo-like sonar device will be deployed into the waters, the same kind of technology found wreckage of the air flight that crashed in 2009 off the coast of brazil into the atlantic ocean. the data recorder holds vital clues investigators need to determine what caused the catastrophe but finding it is just the beginning. >> grab every single piece of this aircraft, every piece of this aircraft is going to tell its own little tale. once you can put those tales togethering that will give you the big picture and help draw conclusion as to what happened.

>> reporter: if and when pieces of the plane are recovered, investigators will piece it together. this was done to the remnants of twa flight 800 in the late '90s, analyzing the fuselage, flight controls and wings would help investigators pinpoint a cause. many crucial parts of an aircraft like engine components are made of magnesium and one expert told us that in salt water magnesium can dissolve like an al a celt al a seltzer . there's also the grim task of recovering the bodies of passengers. the bodies should show signs of smoke inhalation, for example. expert say that work could take months if not years. family members of the passengers continue to push for answers. >> i want to see something from the seas. i don't know why, i just want to see some debris off the aircraft and black box to know exact what exactly happened because there

are too many unanswered questions. i, for now, the waiting continues for the clues from the families desperate for clues to emerge. cnn. some families of those on board the missing flight decided to take their complaints directly to maldsen officials in beijing. pauline chiou is in the chinese capital. she joins us live. pauline, they marched on the malaysian embassy there. was this a protest or a chance to vent anger at malaysian officials? >> it was a major protest. and, john, you've lived in beijing so you know what this looks like and it doesn't happen very often in the capital city. but these family members, they are not satisfied with the malaysian government's explanation of why they think the plane went down. they want hard evidence. we've talked to several relatives that said "show us debris, show us a suitcase, show us a seat cushion. if you don't have that, we don't want to hear that this plane

went down." so they are very angry about this and angry with the way this message was delivered by text message and also suddenly with this announcement by the prime minister. so this morning they all congregated, they protested, they were trying to get to the malaysian embassy by bus but police officers would not let the buses out of this hotel area. so they decided to walk and they walked about one kilometer to the malaysian embassy and they protested for a couple of hours and along the way they held up signs that said "we want the truth. the malaysian government is lying." one woman held up a sign saying "husband, please come home, what about me and our child?" i also spoke with one relative, his name is steve, his mother was on board the flight and he said he has no faith in the malaysian government. >> i don't think that they could handle it from because from the beginning they just hide everything and i don't think this kind of government, a liar

and even a murderer, can solve anything. i don't believe they can solve anything. >> reporter: you hear the anger in his voice and he speaks for many relatives saying that the officials here from malaysia are not effective enough. in fact, many of if family members say they are ready to get on a plane and go to kuala lumpur to confront people at the highest level in kuala lumpur. they want to confront the people who are making these decisions. now, right now behind me, john, you can see a lot of media. we're here at the hotel where the families are staying. they are supposed to have a meeting with chinese government officials as well as malaysian officials. security has really stepped up. they aren't allowing us inside that building and one of our producers actually saw a swat team go in about 30 minutes ago so clearly there's this expectation that there may be a big confrontation because emotions are running high. john? >> so they've got this meeting coming up next with chinese

government officials. but in the medium term, i guess, what's the plan here for these families? clearly staying at the low teho beijing is not a long-term proposition for them. >> reporter: no, many of them say they want to go to kuala lumpur, as i mentioned, they're also saying they are not ready to go to australia even though malaysia airlines has said once there is actual concrete debris, for example, that they can find then they'll begin considering bringing relatives there. but the relatives say at this point they're not even ready to go there to keep an eye out on the recovery effort. they're also -- there's also talk of possible lawsuits. as i've reported before, about a week and a half ago lawyers, aviation litigation lawyers were coming here from the u.s. even in this hotel, i've asked them if family members have approached them and they've said yes and they've had discussions and the idea of a lawsuit is very new in this society as you

flow reporting here. it's not a litigious society but these families are starting to request ask questions like can we sue in another country? what kind of compensation can we get? can we sue even if they don't find the airplane? and lawyers are also telling them that if this lawsuit ends up in the us, juries tend to award more in compensation. so they're starting to absorb this information, starting to do their research looking down the line long-term john. >> thank you, pauline ciao lihi. if you look at that demonstration, the placards were printed, not hand made signs, buses were organized, some were even wearing t-shirt so clearly this is a group of people who are organized and are getting more organized by the sounds of things. there it is right there. >> indeed. and because they haven't had a lot of help, a lot of support from anyone else they have actually gone within the group here of the family members to find the support they need and

clearly, as you say, very well organized. well we are going to take a short break now. another story we're watching very closely, hoping are dimming to find any more survivors from a landslide in the u.s. state of washington. >> but one emergency official says he does believe in miracles. that's coming up next.

rescuers are still hoping to find survivors of a weekend landslide in the u.s. state of washington. >> the death toll is at least 14, another 176 are unaccounted for, although a local emergency official does stress some on that missing list are likely safe. we have more on the very difficult rescue effort ahead. >> my neighbor's house and their neighbor's house has been

completely taken out and it's collapsed on several of them. >> reporter: as you can see from this stunning new photo, the landslide was truly massive, devastating two tounds north of seattle. it covered about one square mile and was caused by groundwater saturation due to heavy rains in the area over the past month. >> this is one of the biggest landslides i've seen, i more than 100 people are unaccounted for, including this man, a plumber, making a service call when the landslide hit. his daughter isn't giving up hope. >> we just have to think that he's somewhere and he's safe and they just can't reach him right now. >> reporter: as officials look for the missing, there's a heartbreaking reality in the message. >> i'm very disappointed to tell you that we didn't find any sign of any survivors and we found no survivors today. >> reporter: in addition to fears of another landslide downstream, authorities warn those upstream that flooding there is still a very real possibility. the murder trial of oscar pistorius has just resumed.

a police cell phone expert is back on the stand this hour. monday he read aloud text messages between pistorius and reeva steenkamp. in one message, steenkamp told pistorius she was afraid of him at times. she called him jealous and possessive and said she was tired of him picking on her. time for another break. when we come back, we'll take a closer look at the people on board flight 370. >> the grandparents, the friends and loved ones aboard that missing airliner.

>> will come back to our viewers in the united states and around the world. >> we have a closer look about how to find that missing malaysian airlines flight. >> how information from an earlier crash may help. >> since the search began, just

u.s. navy aircraft have covered more than 160,000 square nautical miles but now new satellite data is helping search teams get closer in the indian ocean. >> we know we're only looking in one haystack rather than multiple haystacks. >> reporter: this former navy oceanographer's firm developed search maps that helped locate air france flight 447 in the atlantic ocean. he took us through the sophisticated mode dells that used. first, a grid that showed where the air france plane likely it this surface. two calculations for that, how far the plane could have flown between the last position update it gave and when the transponder failed and where the debris would have fallen if the plane had a catastrophic failure at cruisi cruising altitude. >> so you get a heat map and this meet map says where it's red that's likely where the plane is. where it's green it's a medium chance. >> reporter: but managing the search zones has huge obstacles. why can aircrafts spot so many

promising leads and surface vessels can't find them? bobby skoelly was on the neighbor vi dive team that recovered wreckage of twa flight 800. >> the item could have sunk, it could have been blown completely off on a different course or pushed some place else and the ship will just never find it again. >> reporter: china's government released this photo of an object that turned out to be a whale carcass but if any wreckage is found, a drift analysis map can help find the rest of the plane. data marker buoys helped measure where the wreckage of air france flight 447 came from. >> over a two week time frame they were tracked our by hour to see where they were reporting themselves as they drifted in the ocean currents so you see the current -- the buoy down here on the southwest, the red dot started here, went west and then ended up over in this region. >> reporter: in the air france case, one map grid was calculated as if the pingers were working. when they recalculated as if they were not working that's when they located the plane. could that work for malaysia

airlines flight 370 in? this method could work in the ocean but without wreckage found it's tougher. until more tangible information is found he says they can't come up with data that's as clean or pinpointed a location as the air france maps did. brian todd, cnn, virginia. the weather off the coast of western australia, there's a cyclone and also some weather to report in the united states, a nor'easter is brewing here as well. >> absolutely guys. we'll give you a unique perspective of what's happening across australia, a google earth perspecti perspective. the storm front pushing through the storm zone. this is tropical cyclone gillian sitting off the northwest of australia and we're getting a lot of rain moving in towards perth. this storm system will ride parallel to the coastline, move farther south towards perth and we think remain offshore but important to note here as we're getting the latest information as transitioning into this storm

getting into the numbers coming in but it's equivalent to a category two hurricane at this hour as it rides to the south. i wanted to pont this out because if operations resume this storm system will be in the direct flight path of folks getting out of perth heading towards the search zone. so we have a tropical cyclone that will be dieing that will be in the path of some of the officials coming out of perth going towards this region. there's the cold front, winds here could be tropical storm force winds with the storm system through at least tonight and finally seeing improving conditions tomorrow before perhaps more gaza stripy winds return on thursday morning towards the area. but speaking of what was happening around the northeast with a nor'easter developing, this storm system pushing in around the northeast here some time early wednesday morning, snow showers prevalent from washington, d.c. out towards new york city, boston, going to see the heavier accumulations, about three to four inches possible there with the heaviest totals coming out of portions of newfoundland, halifax, 30% out of flights out of halifax have

been cancelled over the next few hours here as the sun comes up. about 20 centimeters, or about eight inches of snow in the forecast there. lovely spring, isn't it? just great. >> >> dark for a lot of folks, yeah. >> great, t.j., thanks. the passengers on flight 370 came from all around the world and from all walks of life. they were artists, executive, grand parents and children. >> anderson cooper takes a look at some of the 239 people who boarded that ill-fated flight. >> reporter: symphony hall a husband and father of two on his way to start a new job in mongolia, his dream job. before he left his home in australia he gave his wedding wing and watch to his wife danika. >> he said "i'm going to leave my wedding ring here, should anything happen to me i want the ring to go to the first son that's married and the watch to the second." and i said something to him like "don't be stupid, just come back

i'll give it back to you and you can give it to them". >> reporter: two men had been on vacation and were on home to two young sons in beijing. >> as parents, nothing was more important to them than those kids. everything they did was surrounding those kid. grow to their house and it was covered with pictures of their boys. >> reporter: 30-year-old huang yi was also on the way home to her five-year-old daughter. she works for a semiconductor company based in austin, texas, and was on board with 19 of her colleagues. rodney and mary boroughs from australia were looking forward to becoming first time grandparents after they returned home. they were beginning a trip with their good friends catherine and robert. they were known as doting grandparents. a friend described them as passionate travellers. this group of artists from china were in malaysia to display their work. most were on the flight back to beijing. among them, the oldest passenger on board, 76-year-old lu

rushang. a calligrapher traveling with his wife. the loved ones of these passengers have waited with prayers and with hope. strangers, mostly children, have left pictures at the airplane in malaysia. this one reads "we miss you, we love you." this one simply says "please come back." so difficult. so tough. awful stories. that does it for this hour of cnn newsroom. i'm rosemary church. >> for our viewers here in the united states, early start is up next. for our international viewers, please stay with us. world business today is coming up next. .

heartbreak in the search for flight 370. desperate families flood the malaysian embassy in beijing hours after learning the jet likely crashed and all lives on board were lost. for the very latest on the search for the plane, the investigation and the families who just want to know what happened. and authorities say they're still in rescue mode, but the number of dead and missing in a landslide in seattle is rising and the situation is being called grim. good morning, and welcome to "early start." i'm deborah feyerick. >> i'm christine romans. it's tuesday, march 25th,